Sin, punishment and redemption

SIN, PUNISHMENT AND REDEMPTION

Mario D’Couto

            In the most traditional way, sin has always been defined as a turning away from God. But on a more broader level, sin is a choosing of a lesser good over a higher good. In one of my previous articles called the “The Phenomenon of Sin – A Lenten Reflection,” I made a note that scripture teaches that whatever God created was good. There was no flaw in His creation. Hence, if such is the case, the next question is why would there be evil? St. Augustine gives us an apt answer, “Evil is the absence of good.” Hence to illustrate this point concretely, when a person steals it is the act of stealing that is wrong. Perhaps the deeper question to ask in why would a person steal? In the most genuine of cases, let us assume that the person is broke and is hungry which is why he or she has stolen. However, the end does not justify the means.

            Another example that could be used as an illustration is when 2 people working for a company are vying with each other for a managerial post. One of them works hard for it while the other is highly manipulative and a smooth talker. The desire to become a manager is not bad. However, the means employed is what needs to be taken into consideration. Is it legitimate to be manipulative and work one’s way up the wrong way or is it good to work hard in the proper way and come up? The answer is obvious.

            There is no value in pain. Pain is not valuable for its own sake. However, there is blessing in pain; that is where the redemptive aspect of suffering is seen, thanks to our Lord Jesus who made it so.

            Speaking about the redemptive aspect of suffering, one of the most vivid examples that come to mind from scripture is St. Paul. He willingly accepted the hardships that came his way, from the everyday irritants to the cruellest tortures as seen in 2 Cor 11: 23 – 27.

            The point to be noted in all this is moderation. Self – denial is not a denial of the goodness of the world. Christians sacrifice the best of things not because it is evil and must be put to death but because they know the world is very good – so good that it can distract us from what’s far better, thus detouring us on our way home to the Father. Like the Israelites, we may choose to return to Egypt or to dally in Babylon. We may choose to enjoy any number of pleasant past times rather than go to confession or Mass or visit someone who is sick in a nursing home.

            Spiritual growth, like physical growth, requires effort and time. We may not be able to see the immediate results but will happen with time if we are persistent with God’s grace. How nice it would be if people who were obese could lose 20 pounds overnight! Yet, the harsh reality is that it does not work that way. The same applies with our spiritual lives.

            In any battle, there are multiple enemies: some seen and some unseen. In addition to struggling against enemy snipers and combatants, there would also be a struggle against discouragement, fatigue and self – doubt. The spiritual combat is no different. Our struggle is against the world, the flesh and the devil. We are weakened by fleshly concupiscence and so we find the world and its delights more attractive than God. The devil knows our vulnerability and concentrates on those areas. When we fail, we may grow sad and tired and that is where the devil has achieved his victory. By doing so, we then become our own worst enemy.

            A soldier who lacks discipline is not at his best to fight. This why Catholics willingly undergo spiritual exercises. We need to be strong to overcome formidable temptation. For we know many examples of great people who failed from Adam to St. Peter.

            Indeed, the odds against us seem so overwhelming that we can be tempted to give up the fight before firing a shot. But we must never let our defences down. We should instead double our efforts, moving the battle further from the city walls, avoiding even the circumstances that would tempt us, avoiding every occasion of sin.

            In the case of temptations to mortal sin, one must flee without looking back, just as Lot fled from Sodom (Gen 19:15-23). Such a sin should not be fought in a direct engagement. When we are passionately prone to sin, as for instance in the case of sexuality, we must remove ourselves immediately from the circumstances that tempt us. It is no shame for a weakened soldier to retreat from a deadly and superior foe. If he preserves his life, he will live to fight again. Discretion is the better part of valour.

            So why this struggle? If Christ had merely served as our substitute, we might well ask as to why should we still have to bear the punishment for our sins? Why must we still suffer and die? As our own substitute, Christ should have eliminated the need for our suffering. While this may sound right at prima facie, according to the logic of the covenant and the teaching of the Church, Christ was not our penal substitute. He was, rather, our legal representative and since His saving passion was representative, it does not exempt us from suffering but rather endows our suffering with divine power and redemptive value (Col 1:24).

            Does God punish sinners? If He does, how does He punish them? Is it by throwing a thunderbolt from the sky? One may think that, that could be the way by which God gets even with sinners. However, quite the contrary. He allows them to be sunk in their passions. Once we are hooked on a particular vice, our values are then turned upside down. Evil becomes our most urgent ‘good,’ our deepest longing and what is actually good stands as ‘evil’ because it threatens to keep us from satisfying our illicit desires. At that point repentance becomes impossible, because repentance is, by definition, a turning away from evil towards good. Good and evil for such a person is redefined. The prophet Isaiah warns us in the Old Testament, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil” (Isaiah 5:20). Unfortunately, we are living in a world were moral relativism is patronized. Romans 1: 24 – 28 also speaks on similar lines. 

            When our wills are weakened and we are blinded by our passions, we are not able to distinguish truth from error. Sin begins for us with our disordered desires. First, we are tempted by a love for something we should not have. Our first level of obligation, then, is to resist temptation: to reject the desire and remove ourselves from the situation that is agitating us.

            If we fail to do so and we sin, we have a graver and more difficult obligation because we have placed ourselves in greater danger. We must now repent of our sin, confess it and do penance for it. But what if we don’t repent? If we fail, then we face God’s punishment and that is where He ‘allows’ us to be subdued by our own passions. The pleasure in sinning, therefore, is the first punishment for sin. But the worst punishment is when God allows us into our own devices. When the Bible speaks about God’s anger or wrath, it does not imply God’s vindictive act. Rather it is the flashes of sudden, brilliant light that God sends to illumine a soul darkened by concupiscence and sin. It is how God saves the sinner from a worse and everlasting fate. Hence, if there is a car wreck, abandonment by our family, eviction from home, the loss of a job or other such phenomena, it does not mean that God is angry but He is leading the person to conversion through the act of chastisement.

            Having said that, it seems as though being the person that God wants us to be seems like something unachievable. The truth is that it is hard but not impossible and the reason is because love can never be ‘bought’. It is freely given and freely received. If this were not the case, we would be no better than machines or robots programmed to act in a particular way. Hence, it is on us to respond to God’s grace every day.

            In James 4:4, it is written, “Unfaithful creatures! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” We are exiles in this world and we must never lose sight of that fact. We must never forget who we are, where we have come from and where we are going. We must live on earth but we must also live for heaven.

            So, like the chosen people, we must ‘put to death’ the idolatry that remains in us. Like the Babylonia captives, we must deny ourselves not only sinful pleasures but a measure of legitimate pleasures, for these can serve as the bait in the world’s trap. It is by our growing attraction and attachment to worldly goods that we turn, by even greater degrees away from God.                      

            Research in human psychology has proven that it takes about 30 days for an action to become a habit and woe to us if it is the wrong one. It is for this reason that Jesus, our Lord and Master, taught the apostles to fast. The apostles, therefore, continued to fast even after Jesus ascended to heaven. It also for this reason that self – denial has always been a hallmark of Christianity and has been the focus of the 40 day Lenten season every year.